"Books not to be destroyed are those on medicine and pharmacy, divination by the tortoise and..."

By: vivian on terça-feira, maio 19, 2015

“Books not to be destroyed are those on medicine and pharmacy, divination by the tortoise and milfoil, and agriculture and arboriculture.”

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Li Su, chief minister of the first emperor of the Qin Dynasty, supposedly wrote this in the

213 BCE  order that all books in the newly founded empire were to be burned. Three categories of books were viewed by Li Su to be most dangerous politically: poetry , history (Shu and especially historical records of other states than Qin), and philosophy. If people were able to read the ancient accounts of rules both good and bad, the Qin officials feared they would make unfavorable comparisons to the Qin Dynasty’s rule. Books, in short, would encourage rebellion.

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